IGOR KIPNIS

on the art of

SERGIO FIORENTINO

The Liszt collection, I'm delighted to report, includes some of those
late, enigmatic creations such as Schlaflos, Nuages gris,
and Unstern where the composer's harmonic world disintegrated. But
there are also exceptionally poetic renditions of such better-known earlier
works as the six Consolations. The performances, ideally introspective,
are oustanding. One looks forward to Vol II.

The third Fiorentino enthusiast is the director of the Newport Music
Festival, Mark P. Malkovich III, who was responsible for arranging the pianist's
visits to the Rhode Island festival starting in 1996. In July 1997 Fiorentino
played an all-Chopin midnight recital of over 70 minutes, without interval,
now issued on Newport Music Festival 3.
The sound, as it is with every one of the discs mentioned, is excellent,
but the really noteworthy aspect is the playing. If just a trifle rigid
at first, Fiorentino soon moves into that rarified world of remarkable Chopin
pianism that makes one want to hear the disc over and over again, savoring
his sensitivity, poetry, and virility. There are groupings of two-to-four
each of preludes, mazurkas, nocturnes and etudes, several delicious
waltzes (including two encores), all nicely contrasted as to key and mood,
plus the Third Ballade. For me, however, the most oustanding of these live
performances is the Op 26 No. 1, Polonaise, which I've never heard played
with more grandeur and authority. The Rubinstein versions of that C sharp
minor work [EMI 1935; RCA 1951, 1964] have always appealed to me, but, now
Ive heard it, Fiorentino's is the one that I would most want to return
to.

Copyright &COPY; Igor
Kipnis, November 12th 1999

Visit the Igor Kipnis web
site
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'I consider the discovery of the syncopated pedal ["the entrance
of the pedal after the striking of the chords," developed by Liszt]
the most important event in the history of piano playing. It constitutes
the high water mark between the older and the present school. No more painstaking
legato playing of chords by dint of fingering; no more dry playing
without pedals in order to avoid blurs. The syncopated pedal was the emancipation
of the wrist and arm from the keyboard'

- Moriz Rosenthal, 'If Liszt Should Come
Back Again,' The Etude, April 1924